Cablegram 542 LONDON, 24 December 1945, 9.30 p.m.
TOP SECRET
My telegram 21st December No. 537. [1]
Allied Council in Tokyo and Far Eastern Commission.
You will since have seen from my telegram 22nd December D. No.
2291 [2] the nature of the agreement reached at Moscow. The Foreign Secretary has explained that there was no chance of securing separate representation for Australia on the Allied Council or meeting your wishes about voting procedure on the Far Eastern Commission. He feels that however unsatisfactory it may be that voting procedure should result in fact in one of the Four Powers having a veto on three reserved subjects (my telegram 21st December No. D 2277 Clause 3 (III) [3]), we should not have been justified on that score in jeopardising this chance of bringing the Soviet Union back into circle dealing with whole question of treatment of Japan and in working at a Far Eastern settlement on a collective and co-operative basis.
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1 Document 472.
2On file AA : A1066, H45/1016/41.
3 On the file cited in note 2.
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[AA : A1066, H45/1016/4/1]